Players stopped playing. Coaches stopped coaching. The crowd stopped making noise. A tornado had hit the Georgia Dome during the 2008 SEC Tournament.

Soon the court was empty and the concourse was full. A public address announcement within seconds reported severe weather was in the area, which set aside concerns of those inside that they had just witnessed everything from an earthquake to a plane crash to a terrorist attack.

After it was clear the immediate danger had passed, everybody was asking the same questions: How bad is the damage? Should the Mississippi State-Alabama game, which had 2:11 left in overtime, be finished that night? What about the rest of the tournament — should it be canceled? Or finished somewhere else?

The resulting events — the tournament was moved to Georgia Tech's Alexander Memorial Coliseum and won by Georgia, which played three games in two days and was the worst team in the conference — made an already surreal tournament unbelievable.

"It's something I'll never forget," says Billy Begley, a Mississippi State guard on that team and now a coach at East Mississippi. "Every player that was in that game, on both teams, every coach, every fan that was there, they'll never forget that."

On the fifth anniversary of that night, Sporting News asked people who were there what it was like inside the most incredible five hours (9:30 p.m.-3:30 a.m. local time) of a conference tournament in college basketball history:

Gregg Ellis, then a sportswriter for Tupelo Daily Journal, now media relations director for Mississippi State basketball: "You know when there's a tornado coming because it's on the news all day — be prepared, be prepared, be prepared. Nowhere was there any discussion on the news or anything about a tornado (in Atlanta that night). That's why it never registered with anybody. The last thing you're thinking about is a tornado downtown in a major city, especially when there's no warning."

T.J. Rives, play-by-play announcer on SiriusXM Radio: "About 2½ minutes into the overtime, the first thing that happened is Mississippi State scored, Alabama is coming down the floor with the ball. A foul is called. When the foul was called, you could see players, you could see Alabama coach Mark Gottfried pointing behind us. ... When I turned to look, the roof was shaking."

Begley: "They say when a tornado comes through it sounds like a train. That's what it sounded like. It was a big roar. I see people running down the stairs. I thought something was falling. You look up at the Dome — it's like a trampoline, it's just going back and forth. For about three or four seconds, I literally thought a plane was about to come through. I thought it was a terrorist attack. For a few seconds, I thought I was going to die. All of a sudden, you hear a loud boom. Over behind the curtain, you can see part of the Dome has been blown out. You can see stuff blowing around.

"There was an eerie silence for a few seconds. Then they came over the PA system and said something about severe weather."

Ellis: "I was courtside. Sitting by me was another writer. We heard a thump. Between he and I landed a bolt from the roof. It landed on the table right between us. Had it hit one of us, it would have been scary. I still have that bolt. I gave it to my son.

"The whole place stayed calm. There was never any panic. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact nobody knew what was going on."

Rives: "There were items that were suspended from the ceiling — speakers and the scoreboards — they were all swaying and shaking back and forth. I looked back and saw this as I was talking on the air, talking about the game being stopped. Then I looked and saw people in every section scattering for the aisle and scattering for the exit.

"The building got colder because the cold air outside came in from the rip in the roof. You could see lightning in the outside world through all of the layers in the Georgia Dome roof where it had ripped open."

Rick Stansbury, then Mississippi State's coach: "I got to looking for my family. I remember going up into the stands and getting my wife and youngest two boys and going on the floor and running back through the tunnel. I couldn't remember where my other kid was. I forgot he was on the bench. The players got him back there."

DeWayne Peevy, then the basketball media contact for the SEC and now the executive associate athletics director at Kentucky: "As the Alabama-Mississippi State game was winding down, I went backstage to make sure we were all set for the press conference, make sure everything was right. I was at the back door when I heard the noise. The tornado was on that side, the backside of the Dome. I was at the end where it came through. I didn't have any idea what was going on.

"Immediately, the doors blew open back there. All the security personnel, the yellow coats, came running into the building. Me and a couple of other guys were trying to close the doors, holding the doors for the last ones to come in. They were the first ones to tell me it was a tornado — because they saw it.

"They were crying. One guy fell down the stairs. He was all cut up. It was a long staircase with massive winds blowing through. One young lady was so small, we had to grab her and pull her in. The wind wouldn't let her get in. It was pretty scary."

Fans gathered in the concourse. Players and coaches retreated to the locker rooms. SEC officials huddled to try to figure out how to proceed, both with that night's games and the rest of the tournament. Georgia was scheduled to play Kentucky after the Mississippi State-Alabama game ended.

Charles Bloom, then the head of media relations for the SEC and now senior associate athletic director at South Carolina: "They made a quick call that we could (finish the Mississippi State-Alabama game) and be OK. The issue was there was a second storm front coming through. They really couldn't guarantee the safety because of that, for future games at the Dome."

Begley: "Guys were trying to stay loose. Guys were lying down, just staying off their feet. We didn't know how long we would be there. We were told we might not be able to finish the game. We only had about two minutes left in overtime. I know a few of my teammates dozed off to sleep. It was late."

"You've got to get yourself mentally back in the game. You've got to calm your emotions and get yourself mentally back in the moment."

Stansbury: "I told my guys, 'Keep yourselves ready. We've got to put all of this behind us. The team that can rev that engine back up, get their focus back between those lines, is the team that's going to win that game.' I thought our kids did a great job coming out and doing that."

When the game resumed, Mississippi State beat Alabama. But it was so late by the time the game ended that officials postponed the Georgia-Kentucky game that was supposed to follow it. Players and fans began to leave the Georgia Dome, and only then did they understand the magnitude of what had happened.

While the damage to the Dome was relatively minor, the Georgia World Congress Center next door and hotels in the area had massive damage.

At some point, people who were there also realized this: If Alabama's Mikal Riley had not hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime, thousands of Alabama and Mississippi State fans likely would have been outside the Georgia Dome when the tornado hit.

Begley: "It looked like a war zone — debris everywhere. We usually stayed in the Westin hotel, which is right downtown. We stayed there every year, except that year. The craziest thing for me was when we drove by there. We looked at the hotel. You could see windows busted out like on the 50th floor, just nuts. We were thinking to ourselves, we could've been just sitting there and your window gets busted out because of a tornado."

Stansbury: "You could see cars upside down. ... If the game hadn't gone into overtime, there would have been thousands of people on the streets in Atlanta. It's incredible nobody got hurt. There were so many people right there. If they had been out in the streets, there's no way it would have been kept from killing a lot of people because there was too much debris being thrown around out there. They would have been literally right in it."

Dave Bliss, then a center for Georgia and now a video analyst for the Oklahoma City Thunder: "We couldn't even get back to our hotel with the bus. We ended up pulling up to one of the other hotels, and we had to walk a couple blocks to get to where we were staying. You couldn't get to it. It was kind of funny because the hotel was full of Kentucky fans. It's always fun to be around those people."

As the Dome emptied, SEC officials worked to complete plans to finish the tournament at Georgia Tech's arena about three miles away.

Bloom: "We had representatives of the city come in to our headquarters. They pretty much told us all of their emergency personnel were dedicated to the traffic and the emergencies that the tornado caused. So large crowds were out of the question in continuing the tournament. We were fortunate that we were in Atlanta and could see what other facilities were available to us if we wanted to continue the tournament. There was a feeling that, for the teams that were still in it, we want to try to finish this tournament."

Peevy: "If we named our champion on Monday, would the champion still get the automatic bid (in the NCAA Tournament)? Once we found out the answer was no, we either had to name our regular-season champion as the automatic bid or get it finished before the Selection Show (on Sunday evening). That's when it came into play the scenario of Kentucky or Georgia would have to play twice in one day."

Bloom: "Dan Radakovich was the athletic director (at Georgia Tech). The conference had a very good relationship with him. He was at LSU and South Carolina, so our folks knew him. We got a hold of Dan and were able to secure Georgia Tech."

Stansbury: "We didn't know if we were going to play the next day or what. It was about 3:30 in the morning. I remember getting a call from the A.D. saying we were going to play the winner of Kentucky-Georgia tomorrow."

Bliss: "I don't know what time it was, 2 or 3 in the morning, that we got the news we'd be playing at noon at Georgia Tech, and that we'd have to play another game that night if we won. Pretty much went right to bed after that. Didn't have a lot of time. I don't think we slept too much. We had to go over the scouting stuff for Kentucky in the morning and walk through and everything. Probably got a few hours (of sleep). You're just running on energy and adrenaline for a couple of days."

Bloom: "There was an awesomeness to it, the largeness of the scale, of the activity of the storm. Then you had the decision on whether to play or not, and the actual moving of the games to Georgia Tech. All of that was just so out of the ordinary. Everybody was like, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is being done.' And they were doing it. It just worked out really well.

"All those years in the profession, it doesn't really prepare you. You're just flying by the seat of your pants and hoping you're making the right decisions."